So, the satanists obeyed a court order and gave back the consecrated host they’d stolen.

Was it the “real” consecrated host?

All I know is that they signed a document saying it was, and that they no longer possess a consecrated Host and they will not use a consecrated Host in their ritual.

I’m guessing that if they turn around and lip off to somebody in the future, saying that they violated this court order, they might be in contempt of court (among other things). Their “priest” is a convicted felon, a sex offender. Does he really want to play that game?

Now, back to the black mass.

The short story is: It’s still on.

What that means is that our Archbishop needs all the support and backing he can get from us pew sitters.

We need to continue praying, especially the St Michael prayer.

We need to continue praying our Rosaries.

We need to go to mass and confession to keep ourselves clear from evil.

We need to show up for the Eucharistic processions.

Unless we’re having surgery or giving birth, we need to show up at St Francis of Assisi Church at 1901 NW 18 in Oklahoma City at 3 pm on September 21 for a Eucharistic Holy Hour with Archbishop Coakley.

I told a fellow Christian from another denomination this morning that this black mass is an opportunity for us to renounce Satan and all his works and take a stand for Christ.

That means all Christians, everywhere.

The fight’s not over until it’s over, and this fight ain’t over.

I support Archbishop Coakley 100%.

I hope I see you at the Eucharistic Holy Hour. It’s not often that we get to put our baptismal vows to such direct action. Don’t miss this opportunity to stand for Jesus.

Here is Archbishop Coakley’s Press Release:

OKLAHOMA CITY (Aug. 21, 2014) – Archbishop Coakley announced Thursday that the consecrated Host at the center of a lawsuit filed in Oklahoma County District Court has been returned.

An attorney representing the head of the satanic group presented the Host to a Catholic priest Thursday afternoon. The lawsuit sought return of the Host following multiple public statements by the head of the local satanic group that they planned to defile and desecrate the consecrated Host during a satanic ‘black mass’ scheduled next month in Oklahoma City.

With the return of the Host and an accompanying signed statement from the satanic group leader that the group no longer possesses a consecrated Host, nor will they use a consecrated Host in their rituals, the archbishop agreed to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice.

“I am relieved that we have been able to secure the return of the sacred Host, and that we have prevented its desecration as part of a planned satanic ritual,” said Archbishop Paul Coakley of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. “I remain concerned about the dark powers that this satanic worship invites into our community and the spiritual danger that this poses to all who are involved in it, directly or indirectly.”

Archbishop Coakley has made repeated requests for the city’s leaders to cancel the satanic ritual in a publicly funded facility.

“I have raised my concerns … and pointed out how deeply offensive this proposed sacrilegious act is to Christians and especially to the more than 250,000 Catholics who live in Oklahoma.”

On Sept. 21, the day the satanic ritual has been scheduled, the archbishop invites the Catholic community as well as all Christians and people of good will to join him in prayer for a Eucharistic Holy Hour at 3 p.m. at St. Francis of Assisi Church, 1901 NW 18, followed by an outdoor Procession and Benediction.

“For more than 1 billion Catholics worldwide, the Mass is the most sacred of religious rituals,” the archbishop said. “It is the center of Catholic worship and celebrates Jesus Christ’s redemption of the world by his death and resurrection. We are grateful for the gift of the Eucharist and pray that this threatened sacrilege will heighten our appreciation and deepen our faith in the Lord’s Eucharistic presence among us.”

If you’ve seen the video of James Foley’s beheading, you witnessed a speech from his heavily disguised murderer giving political reasons for the crime.

It turns out that the real reason was probably mostly about money. ISIS has been receiving large amounts of money as payment for freeing ransomed Western captives. If the claims that they wanted $132 million in exchange for James Foley’s life are true, then it may well be that one of the ways in which this killing machine is being funded is through ransom.

It also makes it even more apparent that James Foley is an American hero who was murdered for his country.

America does not pay ransoms to terrorists, for the reason that I gave above. Ransom money that is paid to terrorists finances terrorism, and it leads to more innocents being taken hostage. Despite this, I want to emphasize that the work of journalists like James Foley is both heroic and necessary. They are heroes, every one of them.

James Foley’s death was murdered because he was an American. That much is absolutely certain. His murderer plainly stated that he was being killed as a reprisal for American air strikes.

It appears now that he was actually murdered because America does not pay ransom to terrorists. In this way, and only a bit indirectly, he died to prevent other people from being taken hostage and to prevent additional funding from falling into ISIS’ hands, which would have then been used to perpetrate more crimes against humanity. In short, his death saved lives.

Stories are swirling around that France has been paying these enormous ransoms. I understand the emotions behind this, but it seems clear that the money is being used to finance a genocidal army that is bent on destroying civilization.

Notice, I did not say a genocidal army that is bent on destroying civilization in the Middle East. ISIS has made continuous direct threats against Europe. They have explicitly said that they intend to wage the same kind of war there that they are waging in Iraq and Syria. They have also made similar threats against America.

How many of the immigrants from the Middle East are in fact carriers of the violent terrorism virus? We don’t know. What is clear is that ISIS is making threats that are in many ways a veiled claim that they have people on the ground in both Europe and America.

ISIS has been actively recruiting “soldiers” from among Muslim immigrant communities, which probably explains why James Foley’s murderer had what sounded like an undertone of a British accent.

… if thousands of fighters with Western passports return home, terrorism analysts warn.

“Right now, they have plenty of other things to worry about and bigger fish to fry,” says Mia Bloom, an expert on suicide terrorism. But “everybody’s worried about what happens when these guys come back” – especially after the U.S. bombing.

The Islamic State, which emerged from the Syrian civil war, has conquered a swath of Iraq and Syria and governs the region under an extreme form of Islamic law. Thursday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called its threat “beyond anything we’ve seen.”

Many Americans have been troubled by the Islamic group’s military victories, outraged by its atrocities and startled by its ability to recruit fighters from Western nations. The video-recorded beheading this week of journalist James Foley has made some wonder whether the jihad that swept from Syria into Iraq could reach America.

An attack could come later from returning fighters, experts say, or sooner from Americans who’ve never been to the Middle East but are inspired by Islamic State propaganda.

But the thrust of the Islamic State’s polished online recruiting pitch is to come on over and join the fight, not to stay home and plot terrorism.

In videos featuring fighters such as Canadian Andre Poulin, the recruitment message is clear, says John Horgan, a UMass-Lowell expert on terrorist groups: “There’s a role here for everybody.’

‘Deacon Greg Kandra wrote a post today taken from an interview of a former hostage of ISIS, French journalist, Didier Francois.

Mr Francois was held captive along with Mr Foley. He said that Mr Foley was subjected to beatings and psychological torture, including mock executions. Among other things, his captors made him stand against a wall and pose as if he had been crucified.

According to Francois, “… Foley never cracked, even under the most difficult situations … (he) was one of the pillars of the group.”

Nicholas Henin, another former ISIS hostage, said that Mr Foley escaped briefly, but was recaptured.

Mr Henin’s reaction to the video of James Foley’s murder is exactly the same as mine:

“That is someone, I mean, a real man … Many people would’ve freaked out and (would have been) terrified because he knew very well what was going to happen to him … but he was still standing up, looking forward and speaking with a clear voice.”

At the end of the video of James Foley’s murder, his carefully disguised murderer drug another bound American. Steven Sotloff, into the camera view as if he was a sack of potatoes.

“The life of this American, Obama, depends on your next decision,” he said while he held his helpless captive in front of the camera.

In the context of the speech this murderer was making, it sounds as if he was threatening to also kill Steven Sotloff is America did not stop bombing in Iraq. However, taken in the larger context of what we now know, it sounds as if this was a ransom demand; pay up or we’ll kill this one too.

This is the press conference James Foley’s parents gave after his death. They beautiful, Godly people, an antidote of American goodness to ISIS evil.

Archbishop Paul Coakley announced today that the consecrated host at the center of the Archdiocese’ lawsuit against a satanic group has been returned.

This happened as a result of a court order issued in response to a lawsuit brought by the Archbishop against the group. The Archbishop filed suit after leaders of the group made a number of comments claiming that they had obtained a consecrated host and planned to defile and desecrate it in a satanic ritual.

Archbishop Coakley expressed continued concern about the “dark powers that satanic worship invites into our community and the spiritual danger that this poses to all involved in it, directly or indirectly.”

For that reason, he will lead a Eucharistic Holy Hour at 3 pm, September 21 at St Francis of Assisi Church, 1901 NW 18 in Oklahoma City at the same time as the black mass is scheduled to occur.

Here is Archbishop Coakley’s press release:

OKLAHOMA CITY (Aug. 21, 2014) – Archbishop Coakley announced Thursday that the consecrated Host at the center of a lawsuit filed in Oklahoma County District Court has been returned.

An attorney representing the head of the satanic group presented the Host to a Catholic priest Thursday afternoon. The lawsuit sought return of the Host following multiple public statements by the head of the local satanic group that they planned to defile and desecrate the consecrated Host during a satanic ‘black mass’ scheduled next month in Oklahoma City.

With the return of the Host and an accompanying signed statement from the satanic group leader that the group no longer possesses a consecrated Host, nor will they use a consecrated Host in their rituals, the archbishop agreed to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice.

“I am relieved that we have been able to secure the return of the sacred Host, and that we have prevented its desecration as part of a planned satanic ritual,” said Archbishop Paul Coakley of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. “I remain concerned about the dark powers that this satanic worship invites into our community and the spiritual danger that this poses to all who are involved in it, directly or indirectly.”

Archbishop Coakley has made repeated requests for the city’s leaders to cancel the satanic ritual in a publicly funded facility.

“I have raised my concerns … and pointed out how deeply offensive this proposed sacrilegious act is to Christians and especially to the more than 250,000 Catholics who live in Oklahoma.”

On Sept. 21, the day the satanic ritual has been scheduled, the archbishop invites the Catholic community as well as all Christians and people of good will to join him in prayer for a Eucharistic Holy Hour at 3 p.m. at St. Francis of Assisi Church, 1901 NW 18, followed by an outdoor Procession and Benediction.

“For more than 1 billion Catholics worldwide, the Mass is the most sacred of religious rituals,” the archbishop said. “It is the center of Catholic worship and celebrates Jesus Christ’s redemption of the world by his death and resurrection. We are grateful for the gift of the Eucharist and pray that this threatened sacrilege will heighten our appreciation and deepen our faith in the Lord’s Eucharistic presence among us.”

<@InYourFaceNYer I honestly don’t know what I would do if I were pregnant with a kid with Down Syndrome. Real ethical dilemma.

>@RichardDawkins Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.

That caused a bit of an internet dustup. So, Dr Dawkins clarified things by switching from the impetuous medium of Twitter to a column where he supposedly had more time to think through what he was saying and get it out as he meant it.

Here’s his more introspective take on the question of aborting babies with down’s syndrome.

“For what it’s worth, my own choice would be to abort the Down fetus and, assuming you want a baby at all, try again. Given a free choice of having an early abortion or deliberately bringing a Down child into the world, I think the moral and sensible choice would be to abort,”

…“I personally would go further and say that, if your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child’s own welfare,”

I only have two thoughts to add to this, and I’ll get through them as quickly as possible.

Thought one: Eugenics.

Thought two: This is where a “morality” based on “the desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering” leads to: Putting other people out of your misery by killing them.

No matter how dastardly a thing is, the perpetrator of that thing will justify it by claiming that they are not, as common sense would lead you to believe, the scum of the earth, but they are in fact noble actors on the great stage of life who are doing this dastardly thing for what they claim is a greater good.

Thus, in the James Foley video, we have the scum of the earth ISIS member giving out with all his justifications, including, odd as this sounds that President Obama is in fact doing the deed, before he beheads an unarmed, bound man who is his helpless prisoner.

No matter the ugliness of the deed, the deed doer will claim that they are the best of us all, that they are, if truth be told, acting heroically.

Silence is the best friend of scums of the earth. What they need most is darkness and deeper darkness in which to commit their crimes against humanity. Those who call for us to turn our heads and refuse to allow the bitter truths of their brutal behavior to be known are, whether they realize it or not, their collaborators and defenders.

I’ve come across a smattering of articles calling for self-censorship in the press concerning ISIS. These people, who I am going to assume are well-meaning rather than villainous, are calling for the world media to stop telling us about the crimes that ISIS is committing. They are doing this on the dubious grounds that publishing ISIS’ crimes is “what ISIS wants.”

My response to this is simple and direct: Get real.

I don’t care what ISIS wants. I do care that people know the truth, even if the truth reeks, as the truth about ISIS certainly does.

We need to know that these butchers are committing genocide, that they are committing crimes so horrible that we cannot fathom them. We need to know who is funding them and who is backing them. And if it is Americans, we need to lock these people up and keep them there. We need to know because evil in all its forms flourishes in darkness and hides behind lies.

A news blackout on ISIS would be an unintended collaboration with ISIS. It would allow them to continue with their bestial behavior uninterrupted. It would abandon their victims in the most profound way possible; by pretending that they don’t exist.

It would also dishonor the memory of James Foley as nothing else could. James Foley gave his life in the telling of hard truths to a Western world that didn’t want to hear them. He, and his incredibly brave colleagues, are our eyes and ears in hell.

The idea of using his death as an opportunity to lobby for shutting down media coverage of the carnage ISIS is wreaking on innocent people profanes James Foley’s life, work and death.

James Foley is an American hero. He died for an American value, which is freedom of the press. He was a man of a faith, a practicing Catholic and, by the accounts of those who knew him, “a good, good person.”

His courage awes me.

If you get the chance to see the video of his ignoble execution, focus on that. Focus on the awesome courage of this American and contrast it with the cowardice of his braggart executioner. The man who killed James Foley did not have the courage to take him on man to man. He tied him hand and foot and put him on his knees. Then, the filthy ISIS coward had to hide himself behind a mask and clothes that would hide both his face and his physique.

I had trouble watching the video. But I have no problem whatsoever with saying that we the people need to know the truth of these things.

The truth is James Foley is an American hero; a man’s man in the best and most courageous sense of the word; someone who watched horrors with compassion and tried to give the rest of us the truth.

The sniveling little coward who killed him is the human scum of the earth.

That truth is plain to see in the video.

Another truth is that the American people deserve to know these things. The press has no business “self-censoring” the facts.

Dr Greg Popcak wrote an interesting post today on the subject of job burnout vs job satisfaction in the helping professions.

He cites a study that indicates that people who are motivated by giving of themselves (internally motivated) last in helping professions such as nursing, while those who are motivated by how people respond to their work (externally motived) burn out.

I would like to add a single, thoughtful wordish little word to the conclusions of that study: Duh.

If you go around, spending your life trying to get other people to feed your needs by earning their approval, you are going to have one miserable life. People pleasing is a one-way ticket to dependence and emotional hell.

I say that as someone who has spent 18 years in public office where it is flat-out impossible to please everybody. Making somebody mad at you every day is built into the business of setting policy for millions of people. You can’t get around it. Every single vote you cast is a decision of whom to hurt. Every time you make one person happy, you make somebody else mad.

The same vote will get you lionized and called a hero by one group and slandered and called everything but a nice person by another group.

This happens every single day. In fact, it happens dozens of times in a single day.

Most politicians try to balance these things out so that they can walk between the raindrops. They try to balance issues and interest groups so that almost all of them, and certainly the most powerful of them, are never completely alienated. The trick in politics is to keep them coming back, which means to keep them hopeful that they’ll get what they want the next time.

Another political way of doing things is what both Presidents George W Bush and Obama practice. That method, basically, is to stick like super glue to one side of the political spectrum and flat-out ignore the other side. When presidents do this, it leads to a divided country and a dangerous inability to lead the people forward.

But enough of politics. Let’s talk about you.

Dr Popcak based his post on a study of nurses. It seems that nurses who approach their careers from the locus of doing their jobs to earn approval and affirmation from other people end up burned out. Nurses who do their jobs for their personal or internal reasons stay the course.

Again I say duh.

People pleasing will only make you miserable. It will also make you weak and variable. If your north star is how other people react to what you do, then you’re going to have to adjust your actions in little ways almost minute by minute. Other people change that fast. A lot of times, the reason they change so fast is because they’re focused on people pleasing, too.

Perhaps the worst part of people pleasing is that you can’t do it. You can not please other people all the time, no matter how hard you try. The reason for this is partly that they think about and react to other things besides you. It is also because they change, minute by minute, day by day, all the time.

The ironic thing is that people who have the courage to be their own uniqueness are often the ones we find most attractive. Nobody really likes mealy-mouthed, people pleasers, not over the long haul. They’re boring. And they tend to be miserable, which leads to whininess.

People are attracted to people who have that shine about them that true authenticity and the self confidence it brings gives to them. That is the essence of charisma.

Dr Popcak tells us that nurses who are internally motivated experience greater job satisfaction than people pleasers. I would imagine that this overall attitude runs through the lives of both groups. The people-pleasing nurse is also the people-pleasing husband or wife who gets wounded and pouts when their spouse forgets an anniversary or doesn’t praise them enough. They are the father or mother who constantly demands their kids’ attention and time and who even gets jealous of their children’s friends and, when they grow up, their sons or daughters-in-law.

People who feed at the trough of other people’s approval can never get enough. Nothing anyone does can fill the holes inside them.

There is an antidote to this, a way out of people pleasing for the hungry souls who live by it.

That way is the Way. No matter if you are buck-toothed and ungainly. No matter if you’re not the sharpest knife in the intellectual drawer. No matter, even, if you are tall, straight and lovely with an IQ that busts through the top of the charts. Whatever attributes you think you are, don’t matter. Not really.

You are loved and accepted and forgiven for all your faults. You are also important, but not because of your looks, intelligence or great singing voice. You are important in an intrinsic and essential way that is based on the deeper you-ness that does not need talent, looks, power or success to justify itself. You are alive in this time to do something that matters in the eternal scope of reality. Everything you do — everything you do — matters.

Instead of trying to please people, which is the equivalent of, as Jesus said, building your house of sand, realize that you do not have to earn the right to exist. You have a right to be here because you were put here by the same God Who made everything, everywhere.

More than that, He loves you on a direct and personal level. I have personally experienced this love, this guidance and contact with the Divine. I know that it is real.

My beautiful friend Margaret Rose Realy says that our one goal should be to be pleasing to God. The wonder of that is that pleasing God is actually quite easy. All we have to do is let Him love us and love Him back.

Give up people pleasing and lose the unending failure that goes along with it. You can not please people. It can’t be done. But simply by being your authentic self and truly giving your love and trust to the God Who loved you first and always, you can find the peace and strength of being whole.

You don’t have to change yourself and get sinless to go to Jesus. You don’t have to shine your soul like shining your shoes before a job interview to come to Christ. You can go to Him just exactly the way you are; stained, scarred, scared and weak. You can throw yourself at Him like a crying child running to its mama. I know because that is exactly how I came to Him.

Jesus never asks you to change to come to Him. He takes you as you are, then, over time, He changes what you want to do. It’s that simple. Loving God, being loved by God, doesn’t change what you do. It changes what you want to do.

People pleasing will not only make you miserable: You can’t do it.

God pleasing, on the other hand, is as simple as putting your hand in the nail-scared hand and letting Him lead you home.

Maybe the Supremes meant it when they said that marriage was a state issue.

If they did, a lot of federal judges around the country didn’t get the memo. It’s old hat by now, the steady click, click, click of dominoes falling as one federal judge after another overturns state laws defining marriage as between one man and one woman. This action has long seemed to turn statements made by the Supreme Court that marriage should be defined by the states and that the feds should stay out of it on their head.

The Supreme Court took the position that marriage is a state rather than a federal issue as part of their reasoning for overturning DOMA.

Whenever a lower court rules on something, the Supremes have a number of options. By far the simplest course of action in the case of the Virginia ruling would have been to let it stand. However, they have granted a stay. This is the third time they’ve done this.

What does it mean?

I wish I could tell you, but I don’t know. Maybe the Court meant it when it said that marriage was a state matter. If they did, these federal judges are overstepping. On the other hand, maybe they will use the occasion to rule in favor of gay marriage. Or, perhaps, they are taking small exceptions to parts of particular rulings. The Virginia case in particular may have been given a stay because of the high-handed way that the judicial panel tried to do an end run around the right to appeal.

Whatever comes of this, my feeling about the fight to defend traditional marriage is much the same as my attitude about defending the sanctity of human life: Don’t quit.

In case you didn’t know, that’s how all tough fights are eventually won.

WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court issued a stay Wednesday that keeps in place a ban on same-sex marriages in Virginia until after the high court has had an opportunity to consider the issue.

The high court action maintains the status quo in Virginia until the case is ultimately resolved by the justices. In addition, it sends a clear signal to other appeals courts and federal judges across the country that the Supreme Court expects them to issue similar stays in future cases.

… In the Virginia case, the action means the state’s requirement that marriage be limited to a union between one man and one woman will remain in place while the court considers whether to take up legal challenges to same-sex marriage bans in Virginia and other states.

The Supreme Court has twice before issued orders that federal appeals court decisions concerning same-sex marriages must be put on hold pending high court review. Wednesday’s action is consistent with those earlier moves.

The latest stay order came in response to a July 28 decision by the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. The appeals court panel voted 2 to 1 to strike down Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage. The court then refused to postpone its ruling to allow time for an appeal to the Supreme Court.

There are a number of statutes which might apply to this situation. According to an article in National Catholic Reporter, a “black mass” involves a naked woman lying on the “altar,” which has a certain symmetry since their “priest” is a convicted sex offender. Since Oklahoma has laws against public nudity, the Satanists claim they are going to forego that, along with using excrement and urine.

Here is a sampling of other statutes which might apply to the situation. These are all from Title 21, criminal law. I’m sure there are many others under tort law.

A. Every person who buys or receives, in any manner, upon any consideration, any personal property of any value whatsoever that has been stolen, embezzled, obtained by false pretense or robbery, knowing or having reasonable cause to believe the same to have been stolen, embezzled, obtained by false pretense, or robbery, or who conceals, withholds, or aids in concealing or withholding such property from the owner, shall be guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment in the State Penitentiary not to exceed five (5) years, or in the county jail not to exceed one (1) year, or by a fine not to exceed Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00) or by both such fine and imprisonment.

2. Larceny:

“§211701. Larceny defined.

Larceny is the taking of personal property accomplished by fraud or stealth, and with intent to deprive another thereof.”

3. Crime against a house of worship (as an Accessory to the crime).

“§21-1765. House of worship or contents, injuring.

Any person who willfully breaks, defaces, or otherwise injures any house of worship, or any part thereof, or any appurtenance thereto, or any book, furniture, ornament, musical instrument, article of silver or plated ware, or other chattel kept therein for use in connection with religious worship, shall be guilty of a felony.”

§21173. Accessories defined.

All persons who, after the commission of any felony, conceal or aid the offender, with knowledge that he has committed a felony, and with intent that he may avoid or escape from arrest, trial, conviction, or punishment, are accessories.

§21901. Blasphemy defined.Blasphemy consists in wantonly uttering or publishing words, casting contumelious reproach or profane ridicule upon God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Scriptures or the Christian or any other religion.

§21902. Serious discussion not blasphemy.If it appears beyond reasonable doubt that the words complained of were used in the course of serious discussion, and with intent to make known or recommend opinions entertained by the accused, such words are not blasphemy.

This is the press release Archbishop Coakley put out about the lawsuit:

James Foley, an American journalist who was kidnapped by ISIS in Syria, has been beheaded.

Mr Foley, who was wearing a mike, made what appeared to be a statement prepared by ISIS before he was murdered. This is followed by a statement from his ISIS murderer. This murderer speaks fluent, well-educated English with what sounds like a mix of a Middle Eastern and British accent. If you can help the FBI identify James Foley’s murderer, call the FBI.

If you can help identify James Foley’s murderer, call the FBI. Photo Source: LiveLeak

James Foley was doing what the massively over-paid talking heads don’t do: He was practicing journalism, and that at great risk to himself. His kind of reporting is the only information we the people get about what is really happening in dangerous parts of the world. We base our conclusions on what they tell us.

I regard his death as the savage murder of a captive American soldier in an army that has become almost extinct: Journalists who go out into the world and get the story. James Foley, along with his brother and sister journalists who risk their lives to give us the news about important world events, are the life-blood of true democracy. May their tribe increase.

Mr Foley, who had been captured once before in Libya, reported from the Middle East for five years. He was the oldest of five children.

He was also a Catholic, a man of faith. He wrote feelingly about the power of prayer and praying the Rosary during his first captivity in Libya. “I began to pray the Rosary,” he wrote, “I said 10 Hail Marys between each Our Father. It took a long time to count off 100 Hail Marys on my knuckles.”

His colleague, Paul Conroy, discusses James Foley’s work in the last video below, calling it a “vocation.” “If people like James didn’t go out there, people would be in the dark … and he’s paid the ultimate price, as has a number of my colleagues … all I can say is that they deserve all the respect that we can offer … the world should mourn the loss of people like James. He was a good, good person.”

I hope that James Foley’s family never forgets that he died for his country just as surely as any soldier.

James Foley is an American hero.

Message from James Foley’s mother, Diane:

A message from Jim’s mom, Diane Foley:

We have never been prouder of our son Jim. He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people.

We implore the ktidnappers to spare the lives of the remaining hostages. Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world.

We thank Jim for all the joy he gave us. He was an extraordinary son, brother, journalist and person. Please respect our privacy in the days ahead as we mourn and cherish Jim.

This video describes what sounds like a bartering of abductees among various Islamic groups. It implies that Mr Foley, who was taken prisoner outside of an internet cafe, was not originally kidnapped by ISIS, but was “given” to them at a later date. I do not know if this accurate, but it may be.

James Foley discusses his work and the dangers to free lance journalists.

Pope Francis is “profoundly saddened” by the loss of his family members in a recent traffic accident.

According to Vatican Radio, the Holy Father lost his niece by marriage, and two great nieces or nephews, aged two years and eight months. A nephew, Emanuel Boracio Bergoglio, was seriously injured.

Christians know that they will see their loved ones again, which gives us a unique comfort in times like this. At the same time, we also know that they are gone from us for the length of our days in this life. As King David said, “I will go to him. He cannot come to me.”

Representative Rebecca Hamilton, 18-year member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives talks about life as a Public Catholic. Read her Bio Here

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I want Public Catholic to be a welcoming place. As my mother would say, be polite. What that means is use courtesy and civility. It also means do not attempt to hijack the board with your personal agendas. Public Catholic is a Catholic, Christian blog. I created it to empower Christians to stand for Jesus in today's world. Repetitive, harassing attacks against the faith, Jesus or the Church are not welcome here. Address others with respect and refer to public figures in the same way. No name calling. No cursing. No hitting. No spitting.